Visitation in Vilnius

Cold air penetrates our bones here.
Walking faster does not warm us.

Out of the darkness comes a tall thin
stranger, a spectral figure who wants
our money. His story of suffering,
so confusing, scary, compelling.

 

Kaliningrad, Moscow, then abandoned
in Lithuania, a leg red, raw and oozing,
never healing, with pain unbearable.

His talk unstoppable, pleading for help.

 

‘Come with me to drugstore for my
medicine, it’s few miles away, we take 
the bus.’

He’s an overwhelmed animal caught

in a tight steel trap. I am anxious,

in this moment imprisoned.

 

You speak to him in three different languages.

Nothing we are, or can offer him, is enough.

Finally, I hand him thirty Litas, then forty US dollars,

remembering my silent prayer to Christ down 
the long hill inside Vilnius’ cathedral. Alexander 

grabs my offering like a hungry ghost, now flies  

away to accost others and woo them with his 

pained, purposeful seductions.

Where is the solace I’d hoped to give him?
Have I, a stupid American tourist, been taken
by this street-smart junkie, or am I simply
a generous man with a good heart?

Or did I act so kindly, in part to impress her, to win

her over, she who speaks three languages so damn

well?

 

And is he a reminder of my dead sibling Chris, his
myriad unfed hungers, his psychosis unrelenting,
those many years in prison and his horrible

homelessness?

 

This frozen guilt, a sharp icicle that knows no borders,

cuts right through all brotherhood of bone.